


Everyone Knows Morals Are Paintings on Walls

by Fangirlinit



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-21 23:34:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6062296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlinit/pseuds/Fangirlinit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When doing business, there is always room for pleasure. A not so academic look into how Alex and Astra pass the work hours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyone Knows Morals Are Paintings on Walls

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a nod to an Audrey Hepburn film remake. Is it heresy to say it's better than the original?

Alex walked out of Lord Technologies with a chip on her shoulder and a bad taste in her mouth. The combination of champagne and caviar had long gone rancid on her tongue. Max had that effect on her and she was damn sure she wouldn’t be the last.

Alex wasn’t a connoisseur of fine food. Give her a beer and a classic New York style pizza and she was sitting pretty. Not _all_ women needed to be wined and dined to make an impression. Snail eggs were over-the-top and an obvious sign that your date had tried too hard. Then again, that had not been a date.

The night was mild and the city clear of traffic. No reason to cover up in her low-cut dress nor hail a cab in her high heels. It wasn’t like she needed protection. Alex liked to walk alone at night. It was the only time she could feel like one of them, like a part of National City. When agents like her spent so much time underground at headquarters, they forgot why the seclusion was necessary. Walking through the city, she liked to be reminded of what they were fighting for: the people, the culture, the humanity.

The florescence of Max’s colossal structure still lit her way. Despite her lingering suspicions she kept her eyes straight ahead. She didn’t falter. High-tech security watched her every step and it wouldn’t be until two blocks out that she could let out a sigh of relief.

But she didn’t even get the chance to reach the first block. Something from the shadows reached out and grabbed her. Alex barely had time to put her fists up before she was dragged back in midair and head first into the brick wall.

She grimaced, expecting the crack and blunt forced trauma but it never came. Her feet were safely on concrete and her back against the wall.

Cautiously, she opened one eye and then the other. Her mouth hung open, astounded.

“Astra? What are you doing here?” Alex scanned her surroundings. The dimly lit alleyway was narrow and empty. They were still just a few feet from Lord Tech. Then it dawned on her. “You’re spying on him, aren’t you? What is this? What are you planning?”

Astra’s gaze pierced the gloom. “So many questions. I can’t decide which to answer first.”

“All of them. Now.”

Their eyes held each other, testing their will, prodding boundaries wordlessly. When she finally replied, Astra’s expression remained blank.

“You’re right – I am spying on Lord. I have it on high authority that his lab is developing potentially dangerous technology.”

Alex’s head rose with her surprise. She did not expect such swift cooperation. “Dangerous to you and your criminal kind, you mean.”

“To _all_ Kryptonian and human kind. This is not the first time I’ve faced his ilk. Krypton had many Maxwell Lords. They’re all the same wealthy industrialists with no regard for anyone else. They don’t care what their inventions do to the planet any more than they do the living things that walk it.”

“At least we agree on _something_.”

“You’d be surprised.”

The lilt in her voice made Alex shiver. It wasn’t so much a threat as an offer. It felt as gentle as friendship and as playful as an affair.

Reality set in like a lightening bolt. Alex rolled her shoulders, mentally recoiling as her shoulder blades grazed the rough brick. She didn’t need this. She got enough surprises on a day-to-day basis. If only some aspect of her life didn’t require a near death plane crash, an impossible to please mother, or an alien coming out party.

The last thing she needed was Astra to exceed her expectations. She had to get a handle of the situation. And fast.

Alex pushed off the wall and stepped forward. Her heels made contact with the concrete and resulted in a _clack_ that echoed down the alley.

A boot heel scraped as it backpedaled. Astra’s chin turned up as if to distract herself from her slight retreat.

Alex wasn’t distracted. Her sudden show of confidence had the desired response – she just didn’t expect Astra to fall for it. Her eyes narrowed, a curiosity itching to surface.

“I wonder…” whispered Alex.

A cocked brow betrayed Astra’s annoyance. The first sign of a break. “Wonder what, Agent Danvers?”

“I wonder if I’ve been seducing the wrong villain.” She didn’t realize what she was saying until it hung between them, swirling in the mild moonlit air.

Stillness settled over them and blanketed a plane of distrust and obligation. So gentle, so playful, it smothered those things that ran rampant in the mind. Silence was deadly to reason because it seeded doubt, watered it, and gave it roots. Reason never stood a chance.

Astra was the one who broke the silence. “You’re wrong on both counts,” she said, eyes growing stormy, cheeks enflamed. “I’m not the villain. And you could never seduce me.”

Alex’s life was filled with surprises. She’d grown used to them, rolling with the punches and sometimes asserting a fist back. And yet nothing in her training prepared her for what came next.

* * *

It didn’t take long to accept mission failure. Sometimes Astra cursed the planet’s effect on her. What good were supernatural abilities if she couldn’t see through lead of all things? It was no gift if she couldn’t use it to return the favor.

They had learned recently that Lord’s true work took place underground. The building’s upper floors consisted of the typical equipment found in any technology manufacturing company. Those labs were a front to the devious schemes. The objective waited several feet below ground level, encased in lead walls and guarded 24/7 by the best security a billionaire could buy.

Astra had formed fists and cursed her luck. Soldiers should not behold such defeatist behavior in their leader and Astra was not the sort to disregard morale. Then again, her men weren’t around to see her, so rage she had.

Perhaps somewhere at the back of her mind she anticipated this ill turn of events and that’s why she went solo on this one. She did so due to her grasp on subtlety. Her Kryptonian brethren may be a courageous bunch but they didn’t understand the meaning of covert. They didn’t care what feathers their god-like abilities ruffled.

Whatever plot she had in mind for tracking the lab’s security detail turned to ash at the sight of candlelight. Astra had stared so long, so hard she nearly burned a hole through that window.

She didn’t know what outraged her more: that slimly excuse of a man smirking his way through a carefully laid trap or that Alex Danvers was clearly falling for it. Astra would have eavesdropped but the smile said enough. What a trusting fool. No woman with a brain would pay money to sit through that. Champagne and an expensive meal and insincere chat… This was not at all what Astra expected from the woman who put up a good fight.

That wasn’t to say she held a high opinion of her. Alex gave the impression of a by-the-book agent and that grated on Astra. She just wanted to beat the purity out of her. She’d be smug about throwing Alex on her back, but it wasn’t like she could brag to anyone. Getting that close would have disastrous consequences for her and Kara. It would ruin whatever fragile relationship they had left.

But it’s not like it mattered. Everyone, including Non, believed she had no serious regard for her niece. Kara was a means to an end; anything more and Astra would be charged as a traitor to their kind. Their general wouldn’t take that risk. She wouldn’t be that stupid.

Astra thought it was high time to examine her head because she certainly resembled stupid. Making out with Kara’s sister was not a part of the plan, but perhaps she could turn this to her advantage.

“I’m not the villain. And you could never seduce me.”

She didn’t give Alex time to defend herself. Before she could gage the expression painting that offended face, Astra acted. She took the bare shoulders, shoved them against the wall, and pressed her mouth hard to Alex’s.

Astra had a problem with people who accused her of heinous crimes. She knew exactly who and what she was and the last thing she needed was this human, dressed to the nines and hair all dolled up, making false insinuations.

Her hands left white prints on goose-fleshed shoulders. They left and went straight for not the neck but the jaw. Not to strangle the disdain from her throat, but to coax it back and at a distance from her bruised ego. It surprised Astra how gently she cupped the face in her hands. It was like her hands had a mind of their own. It was like she had no control over her body. She could only watch as a spectator.

Alex removed herself only to tilt her head and surge in, mouth open and gasping. She kissed back, harder as if in challenge. The unexpectedness of it left Astra perturbed. The shock only lasted a second before she accommodated for better access. Her arms wound round Alex, over one shoulder and under the arm, bringing her in. It was a snug embrace that allowed their entangled kisses to stay. They could have passed for lovers, even, if they did not hold so much resentment for each other. The way Astra held Alex close – breast to breast, noses brushing and mouths colliding – could have passed for protectiveness.

But the strange thing was… they _were_ cradled like lovers and kissing like lovers and certainly sounded like lovers in the little exhales that slipped. Astra dug her nails in like _Mine_ and shivered with anticipation at the back arching into it.

Lovers and possessive pronouns… This was so not what Astra had in mind for the night.

A hand clasped the back of Astra’s neck and pressed her into another long kiss before guiding her down. Her mouth made contact with the vibrations along a proffered neck. Her eyelids fell heavily closed as she cast lazy, aimless patterns with her lips. She kissed and Alex exhaled. Sucking the racing pulse earned her a heavenly groan. There was not anything Astra could do with her mouth that Alex wouldn’t like. It seemed that they were doomed to satisfy – ill fated enough in their minds to resemble lovers.

If she were able to generate any bodily reaction now it was the truth estranged from her usual armor and bravado. In any other circumstance, when she had power over her faculties, Astra would never have reacted in such a way. But Alex tested her and she took the bait like a fool. Any remaining sense had slipped away, leaving the only alternative: don’t stop.

And so Astra played the part like it was her plan all along. Somewhere along the way it escaped her. Somewhere between pinning Alex down and the sudden fire between her legs she had forgotten the plan or if there was even a plan to begin with.

Alex didn’t seem to notice. The indecision and Astra’s lack of giving a damn hardly caused her pause. She gave into pleasure just as fast. Her leg came up to hook around Astra’s hip and pull her close. Astra didn’t fight the pressing strength. Her breath caught, in fact, at the guts of this woman. Alex may be human and pinned and miles from backup, but she did not submit. Astra moaned and kissed harder, trailing her fingers through slight curls. What a fascinating woman.

The kiss had a natural heat to it. The pressure and spike in temperature consumed Astra’s common sense, kicking it out of sight and mind. Estranged from all logic, she did all she could and trusted her instincts. Problem was, instinct demanded she keep kissing Alex and kissing her like their lives and that of Earth’s depended on it. 

Astra never considered herself the hero type, but with the way she had Alex pinned and shuddering under her, she might as well be a fucking godsend.

Fingers sailed through her thick curls and trailed lines on her scalp. The insistent tugs and gasps urged Astra forward. She promptly nudged her thigh between Alex’s legs, trembling and unsteady, and tugged her dress up. Astra closed her eyes, lips pregnant against Alex as the backs of her fingers slid up flesh. When she got to lace she opened her eyes – they flew open, really, and bore into the hooded ones straining to focus.

“Expensive,” Astra observed. Her exploration elicited a sharp intake of breath. She startled Alex. She hoped to do a lot more. “Feels like expectation.” Alex opened her mouth but Astra got there first. “Part of the job. I understand.” She trailed her lips hotly along a jaw. “More than you know,” she whispered, barely audible.

“It wasn’t for him,” Alex said. “What I’m wearing – whatever I’m wearing – helps me play the part.”

“And the part was to get him into bed.”

“N-no!” Alex’s squeak turned into a moan as ever-so-gentle thumbs slipped under lace.

It proved telling how shameful she thought it was to have to explain herself. On some level Astra needed answers and Alex fulfilled that need not with assurance but with the _swiftness_ of assurance.

Astra saw how she punished herself with the grimace. Alex was not any more beholden to her than she was to Maxwell Lord.

“I-information,” Alex explained. She struggled to articulate with Astra’s hands running up her thighs. “I wanted information. I’m… into th-that kind of thing.”

Astra’s mouth widened to a smile. This shouldn’t be fun, but it was. This human shouldn’t be… adorable, but she undoubtedly was. Astra placed her smile at the sensitive part under Alex’s ear, nose tickling the hair at the back of her neck.

“O-oooh,” came fumbling from Alex’s mouth. Her eyes fluttered shut as the sweet assault continued.

Whatever Alex was about to mumble, Astra went in for another searing kiss. She thought about that analytical mind and how she had half a mind to snap it from her neck. That was then. Now she sent that pretty head into the wall. It made a soft thump against the brick, but the force left Alex altogether unharmed. She welcomed it, in fact. She groaned, in pain and in lust. Astra opened her mouth to it and tasted the contradiction, slipping her tongue forth and coaxing another groan. She wanted to make Alex sing out in hurt and pleasure. It had to be her thing. It had to be or Astra would be pulling a Kryptonite blade from her gut.

When Astra finally managed to pry herself away, Alex blinked wide. The sudden rush of cold air between them startled her as much as it did Astra. Closing back in just enough to recapture that warmth, Astra cupped the side of her face (something that felt quite familiar now) and pressed their foreheads together.

“And is this gathering information?”

“I can tell you this is not me being brave.”

Their quick breaths fell into one harmonious reiteration of inhale/exhale. It still felt like contradiction.

It wasn’t about being brave, Astra thought. And it wasn’t about jealousy. She didn’t know Alex well (despite their intimate proximity) and yet from their encounters Astra gathered that Alex was as principled as they came. She stared down injustice through her gun sight and possessed morals she’d break only for family.

Their breath turned into a fog that mingled and dissipated. Astra mirrored the eyes staring back and shared in the claim.

Whatever this was, it would not make heroes of them.

* * *

There was no telling if there would be another kiss or steal of hand. They couldn’t guess what would happen one second into the future, down that alley, against that wall.

When it came it was slow and sensual. Lips parted, tongues meeting, they drank in the kiss. Even the gentlest caress could be charged by the want of company. They shared in it – the passion once absent in their lives. Each had taken to it with a near obsessive need regardless of rules. Duty replaced it. Duty and survival.

Their mouths met again and again. Hands crept over barriers and roamed free through skin. Their bodies were pressing, hands grabbing, and knees bound to buckle. They grasped a breast, a hip, clawed for the wall; if they didn’t with some force they’d lose control and _that’s_ when tender took a turn. Earnest touch kept them grounded and barred them from questioning. It was the only way. Survival.

* * *

When Astra reasserted herself it was with a thigh between trembling legs. Alex didn’t think twice before grinding down and swallowing moan as she did so. She surrendered without a care in the world – or the universe – for how this must look.

Every thrust brought her closer and Astra just had to complicate things further by whispering in her ear. That thick, husky voice had muttered things before, but Alex had a feeling it wasn’t regarding her demise. She couldn’t make out the words but _god_ did those lips feel good on her.

The dress rode up her hips with each thrust. Astra helped it up with her gliding, greedy hands. Alex was on her toes, baring her sex to this woman, and practically levitating off the ground. It wouldn’t surprise her, getting fucked by a Kryptonian and all.

They fell into a rough, passionate pace. Alex dug her fingers into Astra’s back, spurring her to keep up with the frantic pace of her hips. Her moans came with each brush to her wet pussy; fitful moans that matched the ones calling back.

Alex came to the nonsensical mutterings and nips to her ear. She felt safe, somehow, and warm in this embrace. Astra’s body melded to hers like it was her seamless equal.

Panting, Alex shuddered through the last ripples of pleasure. When the haze of her orgasm dissolved, she winced to the brick wall biting into her shoulder blades. Her current state should have knocked some sense into her. Her tousled hair and slick thighs should have prompted some distance between them. The careless scream Astra had pulled from her would startle the depths of her when she regained that common sense.

But by the time Alex opened her eyes she still felt abandoned of the stuff. Instead, she felt exasperation at the arrogance staring back. Astra was enjoying this all right, but would she be smirking when the tables turned?

Alex wiped the smug look off her face with a hard kiss. She wasted no time in slipping a hand through the waistband of Astra’s uniform. What stifling garb. It hugged the curves perfectly, but what a way to infuriate Alex by looking so damn good in it.

She sank her teeth into Astra’s bottom lip, pulling no more than a groan. If she wanted more than that anytime soon she had to shuck foreplay. And so her hand sunk into heat just as Astra’s legs parted. The woman she so easily pit herself against fell apart as soon as she brought her fingers over her clit. Alex kissed deeply, making circles around the erect nub. Astra’s footing became unsteady. She shook under the ministrations, rolling her hips in time and stuttering her “yes’s” when those fingers entered her.

It was so sensual, the way Astra responded to her. Alex nearly cried out with joy at how she responded to her – the sensual moan as Astra flicked the tip of a tongue against her own, her silken pussy fluttering, and the needy whimpers. It was her voice, her wonderful voice that touched Alex most of all.

“ _Alex.”_

A moaning hiss, if one ever existed, turned Alex’s world upside down. She’d sacrifice anything to hear it again, even if it carried an ounce of embarrassment. The cries echoed down the alley and they didn’t stop however hesitant her jaw dropped to them. Astra sounded torn, pulled in two directions: the instinct to just _come_ and the obligation to hold back.

Astra’s pants became as erratic as her movements. She was so lost in the need to come that she didn’t notice how she pooled into Alex’s hand. She was so close. Alex needed to see it happen. She had to witness the features transform before her in all their certainty. Astra moaned her name again as she hung her life on the thrusting force of those fingers. It sounded almost as if she couldn’t believe it.

They coiled round one another; Alex wrapping her arm around Astra’s waist just as otherworldly arms braced around her shoulders. Alex watched the wanderings behind closed lids but she never parted from their kiss. She felt tethered to those sighs and jealous of the moonlit air.

With a curl of her fingers, she had Astra’s back arching and her head thrown back. Her cries reached their final crescendo just as her body went taught. Astra hung on by sinking her hands into Alex’s hair and pressing their mouths firmly together.

It was all happening so fast.

* * *

In the span of a few seconds, when the sparks filled the spaces and the heat pooled between fingers, Astra revealed how startling the effect. She clung to Alex like the planet might fall out from under her. Her hips jerked wantonly as she fucked herself on nimble fingers without pretense. She let her voice, mewling raw into Alex’s neck, speak to her astonishment: how quickly she came and how intensely the light flashed behind her eyes. It was so _fucking_ good she couldn’t fake it.

Catching her breath, Astra sensed the arms still encircling her. She allowed herself to be held in that moment of post-coital relief. The waves of pleasure and exhaustion entwined to quite the effect. The high Alex had just given her could equal that which the Earth bequeathed her and her kind. But this was a different kind of strength. For a split second, cradled in a human’s arms after an orgasm like that, _she_ felt like Supergirl. Strength like that didn’t move automobiles or trains but knocked her walls to dust.

Slowly, Astra regained full awareness. No longer a spectator detached from her objectionable actions, she assessed the situation… and her company. The scent, just the tantalizing scent of the woman woke her up. A trickle of sense seeped into mind and removed her lips from the smooth plains of Alex’s neck.

Their eyes met and recognized the sated look staring back. They quickly diverted their gazes. Hands smoothed the wrinkles and returned their appearance to some shred of decency. Astra noticed the purse laying on its side, forgotten in haste. She bent down to retrieve it.

Alex took it with a business-like attitude. “Thank you. I should be going.”

“Yes.”

A frown warped her features. “I better not be seeing you anytime soon.”

“In any threatening capacity, you mean.”

“Thwarting the DEO,” Alex clarified and softened despite herself. “And failing to seduce me.”

Astra returned the smirk, so deliberate to the point of teasing. The warmth filling her chest told her how innocent this was. They couldn’t harm each other with silly words because this was starting to feel familiar. They made a connection on a level that did not make them strangers nor acquaintances. Though the deadlock between egos would persist, the disdain came across as an in-joke, something only they could hold onto. A secret.

It didn’t last long before the line of opposition returned, the one that separated hero from villain, the one drawn before either had met. Weighed down with a grave sense of duty, Astra wiped clean any trace of sentimentality from her voice. “I can’t make any promises.”

When Alex left her in the narrow alley just a block from Lord Tech, Astra had no qualms about letting her go.

Astra stepped back into the shadows. She retrieved the device from her pocket, the one linked to the tracer she slipped into Alex’s purse. She had only to glance at the coordinates to know exactly where Alex – and, in so doing, DEO headquarters – was located.

But mostly Alex.

* * *

She was walking at a curious pace, curious because of what she left behind. Everything in her told her to run, but it had been several blocks and her feet had kept up this slow, meandering pace. Any passersby who spared a glance would assume she was in reflection.

So despite her better judgment, Alex found herself lost in thought and struggling to catch her breath. This did not make sense as she was a physically fit woman whose pulse should not exceed 93 beats per minute when walking.

She couldn’t accept the cause of it either. Her pulse raced whenever she thought of that alley. She still smelled her – in her hair, on her cheek, and drying on her fingers. Astra… the mistake that turned into an opportunity. Alex couldn’t get her out of her mind and the DEO wouldn’t let her anytime soon. Astra was Undesirable Number One and the government’s most secretly wanted. What happened back there in the shadows and on that wall and at the meeting of lips was as much business as it was personal.

On her leisurely walk home Alex thought about how she had Astra wrapped around her finger (quite literally a moment ago). Now she’d get on with the job and get to the bottom of what the Kryptonians wanted with Lord Technology.

That and mostly to wrap Astra around her fingers again.


End file.
